Conventionally, there have been air conditioning apparatuses which have a refrigerant circuit configured by connecting a compressor, an outdoor heat exchanger, an indoor expansion valve (an expansion valve), and an indoor heat exchanger. Such air conditioning apparatuses include those which perform an air-cooling operation in which refrigerant is circulated sequentially through the compressor, the outdoor heat exchanger, the expansion valve, and the indoor heat exchanger. In such an air-cooling operation, an opening degree of the expansion valve is controlled in order to regulate the flow rate of refrigerant flowing through the indoor heat exchanger, but in order to expand the range for regulating the refrigerant flow rate at this time, the range for controlling the opening degree of the expansion valve is preferably expanded to a low opening degree range that is near to fully closed.
As a countermeasure, there are air conditioning apparatuses such as that disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2014-66424, in which, when the opening degree of the expansion valve is controlled so that the temperature of refrigerant in an outlet of the expansion valve reaches a target temperature, the expansion valve is determined to be in a fully closed state (closed-valve sensing) and the opening degree of the expansion valve is forcibly increased when the temperature of the refrigerant in the outlet of the expansion valve has risen despite the opening degree of the expansion valve having been reduced in order to lower the temperature of the refrigerant in the outlet of the expansion valve to the target temperature.